Why is it ALWAYS the same narrative.
Blacks go to a western country with 1000's of years of indiginious whites and live on welfare the minute they arrive its racism.

HOWEVER
Whites go to black countries and prosper its " colonialism" .

ask yourself this ... IF the first humans are from Africa, why are they not so far ahead of humanity by 100's of years ? the aboriginals been in Australia for 40,000 years ( debatable if its even 1/10th that ) and had nothing to show for it . not even ONE temple . Whites showed up and within 100 years , had bustling small towns and quality of life vastly improved

Time to grow up and look at Culture and attitude VS race !!!

look at innovations per country over the past 100 years and the middle east/Muslim countries have hardly any inoovations per year vs western countries.. laziness and religious nonsense is whats holding them back to the dark ages !!!!!

This is an amazing film. Absolutely correct in its message no matter what the niggers and jews and leftist cucks say. I'd recommend saving this and burning a copy to a disk or several before it gets memory holed by the jews.

13 minutes are mission, where for art they? were they removed for political reasons?

I can still respect it for what it did to cinema as a whole. It's still certainly way better than that terrible Nat Turner biopic of the same name that came out a few years back (2016) though.

wow now keep in mind "I write this without even watching this yet lol" because the comments held my attention and made me comment for the longest time I've known these things nobody would believe so I never say it anymore. Usually, it's either ignorant racists being lead around by false leadership or uneducated lost ppl who truly have no clue what they're saying. now let's keep in mind the definition of "racism" in English it says nothing of color but any race that places opinion against other race-based solely on their race and even anti racism is still just RACISM. that being said almost every race has been persecuted for something by someone at some time. that doesnt say anything bad about blacks I have many black, haitian, jamaican guys as friends idc cuz im truly not racist I honestly think it obsene but it's great to finally see people talking with real knowledge cuz this recent comment was great and Rockefelleryes morgan rockafelle Carnegie rothechild sat on "jeckal" island off georgias coast sometime around then and discussednthe federal reserve and how to take this country back for the king and remember who was the first traitor now bare with me cuz not many believe this but you can check info its fact "Benjamin Franklin" is one of the few names I recall from Declaration signing because my NY education talked soo much about him as if he built this country on his own so you can imagine my surprise to find out he was a standing member of englands hellfire club and after every major masonic meeting hed leave and go back to england to report... how do you think they burnt the white house down?? kind of like how alll you hear is thomas edison father of electricity maybe but no right after highschool i learned truth he had a good idea but it was NICKOLA TESLA that was the real genius which is why he was shut down by who? none other than yup you got it our old friend JP MORGAN cuz tesla said oh we don't need work wires money I can send electricity from colorado to long island wirelessly and FREE and some believe he did it before they blew up his lab in CO. oh no we must have a METERING device to charge ppl demanded JP I would not be surprised if the poisoned him or something IDK but they stole all his work to 100's of patents. your buddy JP and all his cronies were going to NY from London on what oh ya the "TITANIC" you know the "UNSINKABLE" ship... I cannot wait till they pull that up but now they don't think it's right... it's a graveyard and I get it but you know morgan and his crew had stuff on that boat and none of them showed up reason is b.c they wanted certain members of some of their organizations and Americans high in power needed to go for his plan of the FED. and so it was. I'm not saying he did it that IDK but what I said is very true and I would not be shocked to learn there was more to it. as for the captain, there's more to his story too but it's so old that info is scarce so who knows. IDK if I should even mention apollo II hmmm. a cubed brick maybe hmm Idk maybe watch the "ape-man" scene in 2001 again... the background looks awfully familiar. oh ya and about the democrat thing you can look up how many times they switched terms colors and emblems between parties.. there's a reason and this is it soo we would be confused later on. WE ARE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE END AND WE NEED TO STAND UP FOR OUR RIGHTS THIS COUNTRY WAS BUILT ON OUR BACKS THE IMMIGRANTS AND IF WE COULD BAN TOGETHER INSTEAD OF FIGHTING EACH OTHER WE MAY HAVE A CHANCE BUT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT ITS WHY THE CIA EXISTS TO COME UP WITH TACTICS FOR PPL JKCONTROL LOOK INTO IT BUT BE CAREFUL ONCE YOU KNOW YOU CANT UNKNOWN BUT YOU DON'T WANNA LIVE WHERE THEY WANT YOU TO.

PROTECT OUR RIGHTS 2A.
1A SPEAK FREE
OPEN THE EYES OF THE AVERAGE AMERICAN PLEASE!!!!

There is a lot to parce out here. First your analysis of the Black man is a bit off in that their struggle never stopped! After slavery ended it was they who built up their own communities without white help. They had their own stores banks and eveninsurance. They made EVERYTHING from mattresses to the finish of a house. A dollar, circulated among their neighborhoods30 times before it left. They were so successful that they built numerous communities around the country and each one was torn apart. Thank the Federal Reserve and Wilson-Not their white neighbors whom often received help. The story you will always hear is "race mob". Think again say GOVERNMENT OPS! Wilson even took their federal jobs!
After tearing down Black networks they denied them jobs, then later created welfare and made it so they could get no help if a man was in the house. Destruction of the family structure began. Later still, they gave Civil-rights that was the worse thing ever!! Before civil rights Black's dealt with each other, they had schools with Black teachers,, Black hospitals and Black Doctors Black repairmen, etc. Then came the drugs.hoe do you suppose they got into the country? Did Black people go bring them in? Government Ops! No one was crying and complaining back before then. But this shit has been going on non-stop. Not everyone thinks the same though so don't generalize.
You think the white man created everything? Where did Socretes, Hippocrates, Plato & the Great Greeks go to be learned? They were taught by Africans! Imhotep, was the first physician.
As for history? Its been heavily manipulated since the industrial revolution Carnegie and Rockefeller conspired to rewrite history and built and funded its own institutions and teachers (they created the teachers unions). Charles and Mary Beard were among those that refused. You can find their works on here, try the "History of the United States" circa 1921.There you will read about how Lords and wealthy land owners came here- under the King and also learn that whites too were slaves. Many kidnapped from england & Ireland. By reading and doing research -rather than promoting stupidity- you will learn that division among those of us who are not ruling class only makes those elitists remain with their foot in our necks.
For those of you afraid of being replaced... replaced by what? When your forefathers came, were they not French, German, Irish or English? I'm sure you're not pure bred. You're just as mixed as everything else, just white. You get sunburned and are susceptible to certain disease. Americans are strong BECAUSE they are mixed. Your genes will, live on.
As for African people, you said it in your statement al, he'll broke through after colonists left. Would it not been for colonists, wou,would, it have been the same result,? Look at south america, and other places where these assholes take hold. They create the vacuum.
If you have any sense, you would THINK about who the real problem is/was/and always will be. Those that call themselves elites. Believe me, you are also on the menu.
Check "Who owns the world: Blackrock and Vanguard". You will find the names behind those entities
-MotherofGod

Update 11/8/20 Boy this movie sure brings out the best in people.

My Illinois born paternal grandmother belonged to the KKK in the 1920s. To quote her, "I've got nothing against niggers and Jews, but the Catholics were taking over [city] and I just couldn't stand that." (Her English wasn't quite so formal.)

Grandma grew out of this period; I married a Jewish girl and she was very kind and loving to her and seemed to adore our child.

Grandma died in 1980. I never got to seriously discuss that period of her life or if she saw this movie, but she said more than once that Pres. Wilson was the worst thing that happened to this country with his federal legalized segregation. She also liked JFK and MLK so I think she did grow.

To begin I repent of no sins save my own. Then, I know of the 400 year black holocaust. I think it was the most atrocious, evil, demonically induced holocaust in history.
The second greatest was that of Ukraine. Twenty to thirty million Ukrainians were starved to death in the late 1920s to the mid 1930s.They were forced into collective farming, their farm implements and their work animals confiscated. Finally Stalin, advised by his "LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION" starved them to death. Corpses were disinternned and eaten. Finally children were kidnapped and cannibalized. I cannot begin to imagine the sufferings these Africans and Ukrainians went through.
I am not YAHVEH. I certainly make no pretence to knowing HIS will. However, if I may, from my view as a human being I cannot conceive of a hell too tormenting, too eternal for these.
This said, black people in the Western World, especially in the USA,have access to all the science, technology, medical care, culture, which it took white people millennia to create. The only technology, etc, in Sub-Saharan black Africa is that which white people gave them. Blacks, native and otherwise love to go on about how white imperialists colonized them. Was it better when Europeans left and all he'll broke loose, e. g. the genocide in Rwanda. At some time in all peoples nations there has been invasion and conquest. Sometimes the treatment of the conquered was nearly too bad for words to express. However, of all the brutality and cruel oppression through millennia blacks are the only people who will not, cannot, let it go. Instead of taking advantage of all the abundance which they have received, especially in the last sixty plus years, all they do is whine about mistreatment they have suffered, amazingly, even before they were born. The reason is clear, and pitiful, they simply don't cut it, don't measure up, and are woefully out of the jungle in the White Man's World.
As for the Jewish "holy hoax", of course it was real. So real that it's the only historical event ever enforced by law to its veracity

Great Movie !
Look at all the "useful idiots" longing for their own extinction. As you read this you are being replaced. You are being manipulated by your optic nerves. But you call me racist and yet it is you who demean and ridicule the proud legitimate rulers of the world . When you have killed the white goose that laid all those golden eggs and you are now just the creations of Dr Moreau, enjoy your existence as tenants in the ruins of a once great land.

Democrats didn't vote against the civil rights act. It was pushed through Congress by Lyndon Johnson, and was passed by a majority of either party.

George Wallace ran for President as a third party independent.

The idea that Trump isn't a racist because he dated a black woman is ridiculous on its face. Every wife beater has dated a woman.

Okay, the movie? By the time Birth of a Nation was made, the history of the south had been scrubbed and sanitized by the "Lost Cause" dogma largely through the efforts of the Daughters of the Confederacy. The film corresponded to the historical record, but by 1915 the historic record had been altered. But, you know, great cinematography.

The Democrats were the KKK, Margret Sanger's Negro Project, Jim Crow were.
The Republican party was the the Abolitionist anti-slavery party.
FDR, a Democrat, interned innocent citizens of Japanese decent?
Wallace, a democrat, ran on the Segregation platform?
As recent as 1965 the democratic party voted against the Civil Rights Act.
One could hardly call 1965, one hundred years after the Civil War, the reconstruction period.
And still to this day people tag the Republican Party as the racist?
Even Trump has a history of black friends and associates.
He even dated a black women.
He is the only President to recognize Jerusalem.
There is nothing other than "people", mostly CNN and MSNBC, saying he is a racist that proves he is racist.

❤

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A15&version=NKJV
1 John 3:15 New King James Version (NKJV)
15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

❤ White America can jump up and down, and scream and holler, and kick and shout, till the cows come home, but it is still physically impossible for a murderer to enter the Kingdom of God, unless one repent.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+11%3A26&version=NKJV
Romans 11:26 New King James Version (NKJV)
26 And so all Israel will be saved, ….

❤ Prince Israel’s Royal Bloodline:
❤ All White American Israelites.
❤ All White British Israelites.
❤ All White Canadian Israelites.
❤ All White French Israelites.
❤ All White New Zealand Israelites.
❤ All White Australian Israelites.
❤ All White Denmark Israelites.
❤ All White Holland Israelites.
❤ All White Irish Israelites.
❤ All White Scottish Israelites.
❤ All White Switzerland Israelites.

❤ God’s Three Favorites:
❤ All White Israelites.
❤ All Egyptians (Egyptians are not Israelites).
❤ All Germans (Germans are not Israelites).

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+48%3A14-19&version=NKJV
Genesis 48:14-19 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.
15 And he blessed Joseph, and said:
“God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
16 The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless the lads;
Let my name be named upon them,
And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
17 Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head.
18 And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”
19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”

❤ Notice Israel said, “Let my name be named upon them!” White America’s true name is Israel (Israelites; plural), and Jacob, and Manasseh (the first born)! Israel is a Prince, so that means that White Manasseh Israelites and White Ephraim Israelites are from royal blood! White Ephraim Israelites are the British Common Wealth peoples. White British Ephraim Israelites are greater than White America Manasseh Israelites!

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20%3A11-12&version=NKJV
Revelation 20:11-12 New King James Version (NKJV)
❤ The Great White Throne Judgment
11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. ….

❤ Then the “books” are opened. The term “books” here is translated from the Greek word biblion which is the same word translated “Bible”—meaning the books of the Bible!

❤ So finally, these formerly blinded people from all ages past—including our own time— have the books of the Bible “opened” to their understanding.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+25%3A7&version=NKJV
Isaiah 25:7 New King James Version (NKJV)
7 And He will destroy on this mountain
The surface of the covering cast over all people,
And the veil that is spread over all nations.

❤ The veil which had been over them in the past is now destroyed when our LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ returns.

❤ Now, at last, all these people have their first genuine opportunity to know God, receive the Holy Spirit, Successfully Repent of all their sins, Develop Perfect, Righteous, Holy, Godly, Character, and accept the true Christ as Lord and Savior, Enter the Kingdom of God as His Obedient Children, forever. About 1,000 years from now, during The Great White Throne Judgment timeframe.

❤ God has had every intention of putting 99% of all of mankind that had ever existed into His Kingdom, since before He created the vast universe, and all His Holy Angels.

❤ However, White America is not scheduled to finally get along with others until they come face to face with their LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ!

❤ Remember God’s Laws, God's Way of Life, are not referred to as the happy suggestions!

❤ To the Kingdom of our God!

❤

Historically it made many important advances in film techniques, and some of the battle scenes are magnificent. Historiclally, it also is awful, distorting the facts and glorifying a real American terrorist organization while encouraging its rebirth in 1915. Reconstruction was a very difficult period, and it is not certain that Lincoln's gentle version would have worked. But what people of color in the South ended up with was a nightmare of brutality and poverty--it is no wonder they left by the millions. This film encouraged a system that shamed America and set the South back even further.

The film is just as true today as it was more than a century ago.

Not really a review, but can anyone here or the uploader tell me whether this version is free and legal to use for reproduction? This movie should be in the public domain but wanted just to confirm if this version would be okay to use in another production such as a documentary. Thanks!

the truth in film. this is what happened.

It's a shame this film was so popular. It represents the misguided thinking of the "redeemed" South and the mythical "Lost Cause." The film exemplifies the elitist white southern thinking that justified racism, segregation, and even the lynch-mob culture. Really sad that this thinking is perpetuated today. The Civil War was fought over slavery, the Confederacy was based on racism and slavery, and the post-war South perpetuated racism, segregation, terrorism, and murder for a century. This film is racist propaganda.

And no, I am not a liberal.

The spectacle of the depraved exceptionalism of a racist nation with no equals in the entire history of humankind.

people should be forced to watch this before they review other old movies, the liberal wingnuts, might thing twice before rating some old film(ie Song of the South) as "crap" because it's not sensitive enough to some "minority". a hundred years later we have idiots whining that doctor who is racist because all the actors have been white.

The most famous lynching in the history of the U.S.A occurred during the same year this film was released. The lynching of serial pedophile, rapist and convicted child killer, Leo M. Frank. Is there a connection?

Once you get used to the silent aspect of it, this is an engaging film. I enjoyed the second part more than the first & the ending, most of all. In the 70s, even college history classes were very dry-entirely sanitized & did not nearly portray the horrors of the Reconstruction. (It didn't match the stories passed down in my family at. all.) We hear a lot, today, about "hate" & "racism", but I have never heard anyone- especially those who are so frivolously accused of these, reach the poisonous hatred & viciousness of the abolitionist yankees of the era or of the liberals & blacks, today. I have just finished "Authentic History, Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1877 (available on this website); written in 1924 by Susan Lawrence Davis, & this movie is a good companion to it. (The book was what compelled me to seek out this movie) The parallels between then & now are truly chilling. The rhetoric of the abolitionists- especially of the, then, governor of Tennessee (William Brownlow), Harriet Beecher (Stowe) & her brother, Harold, was appalling beyond expression. I wish they would run this on tv to provide people with some perspective, but I'm sure it would only be denigrated & ridiculed by the left, anyway.

A groundbreaking film of its time, in technique and scope. An accurate portrayal of American racism between whites and blacks in the 19th century. Like Huckleberry Finn it is inexcusable to censor or window dress the film to make it more pleasant to our 2011 ears.

You should only watch this if you are strong enough to handle having the Civil War in your soul.

Why? Because this movie WILL stick with you like glue, that is - unless you have no soul...

...Wondering how to convert this 3 hr. epic to a DVD..download "Freeware Video Converter"..click on video... drag this film to the window and click burn.Wah-lah ..Its Freeware..

It doesn't seem like this is the original soundtrack, but I really wanted to know where the music was from. Included in the soundtrack are Mendelssohn's "Ruy Blas" overture, Dvorak's 8th Symphony, the last movement, and Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite.

Like Gone With the Wind (the Producers looked at Birth of A Nation to compare their vision) - this film must be viewed through the eyes of the people who saw it when released. Opinions are not facts. It was an international success. Their beliefs at the time are not necessarily the beliefs of those today. They were not even the beliefs of everyone from that era. Films are a point of view of the Director. And the closing card of the film, as noted by a previous reviewer states the Director's intent. The acting, scope, style are indeed a powerful, as is Gone With The Wind when viewed today. In GWTW black people were referred to as "darkies" & "inferiors." That reflects the author of the book and her writing. When looked at with open minded hearts and eyes and placed in context of the time it was released - indeed, a masterpiece.

David W. Griffith's wonderfully visionary story about World War I, the consequences of seeking retributions from and causing damage to Germany under the Treaty of Versailles, the formation of The League of Nations to try to enforce the unfair terms of that treaty, and the equally horrible (but very predictable) retaliation by the misled followers of a racist visioniory of an Aryian nation named Adolph Hitler; right up to the invasion of Poland to reclaim the Polish corridor.

That's the movie you saw, right? If not, maybe the adage "Those who do not learn from history are forced to repeat it." applies.

Thanks D. W. G. for showing us that how we end war(s) is more important than why we fight war(s).

Racists be damned, this is a 10/10!

..who stated that technical innovation is not enough to make a movie great; storytelling is just as, if not more, important.

And the racism in this film should NOT be simply overlooked or excused.

What is especially insidious is that the story is portrayed as 'fact'.

There was an interview with Griffith in 1930, (seen on Masters of the Silent Screen) and when asked about this film, he actually believed this is what the South post-Civil War was really like - at first, I thought, 'how in the WORLD could he actually think that?' Then, I read a little about him on Wikipedia - and, considering his background, it's not surprising in the least - not only was he a Southerner, but his father was an Army Colonel in the Confederate Army. So, it's not wonder he had such viewpoints.

What is doubly sad, though, is what a blockbuster this movie was. Just gives you an idea of the mentality of this country at the time...

Considering most movies at this time were shorts, the feat of conceiving, let alone producing three hours in a new and such untried medium, must have seemed inconceivable at the time.
Where does a director start, with such a potentially powerful and new media at his disposal? His country's history and of course, the Civil War, which ultimately shaped it. The interweaving of the personal drama is standard now and though those parts seem a little disconnected and boring now - probably because watching 3 hours on a laptop, viewing inevitably gets interrupted.
As to the whole racist element - I'm not condoning it for one second, but this was 95 years ago, it was partly based on a novel called The Clansman and obviously was a big issue then and Griffith didn't have hindsight. Testing the water, you could say. I did find it interesting that his clansmen are more like Samurai as they storm into confrontation than the subsequent and more usual portrayal of them as they went about their despicable business.
Quite rightly it has its place in history and one which I can now cross off my list to see. Any film that stands the test of time is either confrontational, controversial or technically ground-breaking. This is all three. That also means not perfect and not necessarily completely enjoyable, either.

I understand that Birth of a Nation was a pioneering film as far as technical innovations. But in my opinion a film's storytelling should be just as important, if not more important than the technical aspects. And in the case of this movie, the storytelling is bigoted and frankly inaccurate.

Reviewers who so passionately and eloquently write against this film seem to do so BECAUSE of, rather than IN SPITE OF, its popularity. Any film that strikes such a responsive cord in a such a large population should be seen, if for no other reason than to understand the beliefs of a population, especially if that population lives next to you.

Film, like other forms of expression, reflects the ideals and values of a people and a culture. But these critics seem to argue that hatred should be repressed, not expressed for the sake of assimilation. Historically that has never worked. Repressed hatred is a pressure cooker whose pent up steam will explode far more violently than if it escaped from a relief valve.

I oppose racial descrimination and groups that advocate it, but equally oppose those who attack my freedom of speech and my right to defend myself against those who would attempt against my life or freedom of choice.

The film's primary argument is that after the Civil War, organizations such as the KKK provided a much needed relief valve for the pent up steam of a large group of proud people who rebelled against the injustice of losing their property, dignity and way of life. Gone With the Wind was more subtle, (and less explanatory) but no different.

The movie depicted government at its worst and rebellion at its best. The film will certainly be hated by the communist and globalist varieties of socialists. For that reason alone, I give it 5 stars.

The film showed that those in power who claim to supress hatred are those who repress freedom whenever an opinion or behavior is opposed to theirs. They are happy to provide us with a grey world of subservience that they design and implement while they hide their own prejudice behind their hipocrecy.

This movie offers the belief, hope and motivation to those under despotic rule, that freedom can be achieved by opposing tyranny. That lesson is as relevant today as it was after the Civil War.

I cannot imagine why any human being would ever mock the sanctity of human existence. Moreover, state, “Israelites would appreciate” this type of ignorance considering the catastrophic consequences of WWII.

“Birth of a Nation” amplifies the type of society we continue to evolve from ~~ suits, social appetites, and greed have replaced ~ White Hoods.

As a direct result, social demographics along with economics are camouflaged.

This film is a depiction of community genocide in the name of reconstruction, along the lines of social order then and now.

A Familiar, ring tone of the North and South in the twenty ~ first century.

Unfortunately, it has expanded into a global state, better known as Archives!

THANKS TO Mr. Griffith and those would appreciate his work!

I believe the American dream often applauses, the impalpable in the name of history as well as social order.

While I am grateful, we have Amendments; and equally sadden that some of us choose to use them to instigate discord, rather than promote social impartiality.

My, my. A century later, this still seems to bring out the worst of the worst. You sound a little bitter, MatthewOtt.

I've never been able to watch this movie in its entirety. There is a sickness about it that makes it too painful to go further. I've watched many films of that era, with demeaning caricatures of African Americans and others, but accept those as reflections of the period. But this goes well beyond that, glorifying violence and hatred and serving as a rallying call for one of the most despicable spectacles in our history. I prefer to think Griffith was sincere in saying he had no such intention. But this is what he'll be most remembered by, and many people do not look back at him favorably for that reason.

Reading MatthewOtt's "review" initially gives me regrets of having uploaded this film and makes me consider removing it. But it's a piece of history that can't be forgotten, and it's too important to be aware that this kind of vileness is still among us.

To all you self loathing whites who's heads are buried in the Talmud...where is our white history month? The only propaganda you need to be worried about is the jewish propaganda that sees to it that our race is to be bred and illegally immigrated out of existence. This country is the New Jerusalem of scripture where Yahweh regathered his people Israel...THE WHITE RACE! This country was obviously founded by white Christian men, with the foundation of law using the bible as it's cornerstone. By not keeping our race SEPARATE as demanded by Yahweh throughout the entire bible, we have brought our current condition upon ourselves. I'd be willing to bet most of you idiots felt sorry for those satanic beasts in Haiti who 100 years ago wiped out the entire white population, changing the richest nation in the Carribean to a below 3rd world cesspool. Wake up white people, to the fact that you are the Israelites of the bible. The facts and evidence are there, all you have to do is look.

Having read all the rest of the "reviews," it appears that two things are advocated. The first is that human beings have little or no ability to form a will of their own once shown a film. The second is that, because of the first, censorship should be allowed. The propanda that exists and is not addressed in the film is that slavery has been abolished and there was no slavery in the North. If you have been convicted of a crime, the Constitution does not prohibit it. After the 1857 decision that "negros" are not persons, in Scott V. Sandford, there was no place it could be prohibited.

This film document unequivocally white Americans culture both with distorting history and with terrorism. Much of what the KKK did back in those days was never prosecuted and that has effected white sense of justice when it comes to African American to this day. (Seeing some of the comments here, prove my point!)

Ku Klux Klan founded 1865
Ku Klux Klan disbanded 1871
Birth of a Nation 1915
Ku Klux Klan recreated 1915
'Nuff said?

Here are some things that are profoundly amazing about this movie: 1. It is preserved in excellent quality compared to other films that were released in 1915. 2. The movie masterfully suspends reality. So much so that many people actually believed that what was happening on the screen was more like a documentary than a drama. 3. Those not used to watching silent films can still be drawn into the story line, even for the length of the film. 4. The KKK used this film as a recruitment tool even up to the mid-1970s, and I remember seeing an ad for a screening of the film in 1990 for the film's 75th anniversary. I'm sure the KKK was there ready to recruit. 5. This film caused some to think that the court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson was overreaching (because the film portrays blacks as "forever inferior" to whites). 6. It set the tone for civil rights as a violent good v. evil battle; a feeling that still persists among many to this day.

It is definitely worth the 3 hours you'll spend watching it, if for no other reason, than to ponder what I have pondered and to imagine how civil rights might have progressed had the movie not been made.

There are those amongst us who are still waiting for the little Colonel to return with his white sheets and remove the Mulato from power. Just watch certain news programs and observe certain politcians to see this latent tendency. It is part of our culture, like it or not.
The film depicts, overtly, what many would like to do covertly today. It is representative of our worst devils and not our better angels. Therefore, it is an important film from a sociological perspective.

There Is A 16th President Of America.

I Liked This Film Thankyou!

D. W. Griffith didn't invent every technique used in The Birth of a Nation. Billy Bitzer was the cinematographer who came up with many including shooting at night. The film represents the culmination of visual strategies to communicate narrative that the film industry had been working on for the first twenty years of its existence.

However, Griffith's work should suffer the same question as Leni Riefenstahl's - Film-Maker or Propagandist? A powerful film, one may ask why can't I praise art made for hate's sake by this son of a confederate army colonel. After all it's part of movie history. This 3 hour propagandist campaign, the first "feature" film, featuring an ignoble revision of history, is a malignancy that pervades our racial mindset even today. Griffith purposely exploited as many stereotypes as possible. The film justified racial segregation, disenfranchisement and brutal murder:

"We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him." - Benjamin Tillman, U.S. Senator for South Carolina - served 1895 – 1918

Since the film opened on Feb 8, 1915 there was a recorded surge of lynchings in both the north and the south. Included among these is the Leo Frank lynching in August 1915 by a group of prominent men who called themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan.

One can be arrested for yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or for inciting a riot but Griffith's film gets one line of disclaimer for its racist content.

The film's denial of political and social equality is a denial of the U.S. Constitution, America's democratic ideal and very reason for existence. If the film was about communists it would have met a different fate. Its romanticism of [British] colonial fantasies of Aryan racial supremacy in the face of Griffith's revisionist view of Reconstruction was close to being permanently successful in barring blacks from positions of public trust in the United States for most of the last century.

50 million people saw it in the 5 years after its release. Absorbed as truth by a majority, the KKK's heroic portrayal as a special-ops-unit-4-righteousness led to its 1915 rebirth and on October 16, the men who lynched Leo Frank climbed Stone Mountain and burned a giant cross that was visible throughout the city. The imagery of the burning cross, which had not existed in the original Klan, had been introduced via The Birth of a Nation and The Clansman, the book upon which it was based. The anti-Semitic sentiments aroused by that case (Frank was Jewish), along with the ongoing racism fueled by Griffith's film, led William J. Simmons, a failed minister, to establish a new KKK on Thanksgiving night 1915 naming himself Imperial Wizard. In fact, the day the film opened in Atlanta, the local newspaper carried Simmons' announcement of "The World's Greatest Secret, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order," next to the advertisement of the movie. It broke all attendance records even with a $2 ticket price and had 4 runs to capacity audiences during the war years. It proved the major impetus for the reemergence of the Klan and created a nationwide Klan craze.

The new KKK emulated the fictionalized version of the Klan presented in the movie. After WWI in 1920 it grew exponentially when two out-of-work WWI publicists in Atlanta formed a partnership with a prohibition-closed bottle club owner. In 3 years, 3,000 members grew to 3 million due to better organizing techniques accompanied with special screenings of this film. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the KKK included about 15% of the nation's eligible population - 4–5 million men.

The film had a one year run in New York and was re-released in 1924, 1931, and 1938, so it remained in the public psyche for decades.
The sheer power of a film immortalizing wrong as right is what Jews, blacks and whites of good will had to overcome to achieve any semblance of religious and economic freedom, and civil rights and voting rights. Many at the cost of their livelihoods or lives.

A lesson the movie does teach is not to further abuse an already conquered people by trying to annihilate their dignity. You present the opportunity for demagogues to rise up as did Hitler and his Nazi party after the horrendous reparations Germany was forced to pay the Allies after WWI.

The Leopard's Spots is the first novel of Thomas Dixon's Ku Klux Klan trilogy that included The Clansman (Griffith's film's original title) and The Traitor. Dixon wrote them after seeing a performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin and in his anger at the play vowed to romanticize the Clan - his father and grandfather both being members. At the 1915 opening in New York, Dixon told the theater audience that he would have allowed no one but David Wark Griffith, son of a Confederate soldier, to direct the screenplay of his book. Dixon shows how important Griffith's role was in the spreading of this venom to a culture already predisposed to hatred and vengeance. Griffith brought Dixon's flawed Aryan dream for white supremacists, [neo-cons], etc. to a larger audience to create a collective memory that has exacerbated much of the misunderstanding, prejudice, fear, hate, political machinations (the Republican Party's Southern Strategy), pain, torture, death and sheer barbarism of our nation's racial history.

And all this says why it is a great recruitment film for the KKK. Further, Gish is far better in Broken Blossoms.

It was an epic when it was made, and still a work of art in cinema history.

The first part show the "gentile" South and the war. It was romanticized to the extent that brother was fighting brother, friend was fighting friend, and in meeting during the war, they remained friends. Nice, but probably not accurate. Still, it made for a good story.

The second half is filled with controversy as the Carpetbaggers invade the South and establish Black rule that is designed to crush the Whites until the Golden Knights of the Ku Klux Klan save society to live in peace. This is the story as presented, not an interpretation.

Despite the historical inaccuracy, it it still a magnificent work with amazing performances by Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, George Siegmann, and others. It is hard to believe that words are not needed to display feelings.

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I am nothing short of speechless that this film has been placed for download. Although this film is still considered controversial the controversy cannot take away from the fact that this film is a major contribution to American Cinema. D.W. Griffith (The father of American Cinema) has created a truly timeless masterpiece. I own this film and have watched it many times enjoying each viewing more than the last. Well worth taking the time to download and enjoy watching. I hope that this film will soon be followed by D.W. Griffith’s next great piece “Intolerance”, as well as any other masterpieces he created.